Scissors
by Fuusaki
Summary: Sidestory to "Gum", after being requested to write about Takasugi x Scissors, a story involving "a pair of scissors, running around, snow, ice and Takasugi's left eye". Ghost story.


**Scissors**

**Anime**: Gintama

**Major Pairings**: Jouishi—*shuts up abruptly*

**Summary**: Sidestory to "Gum", after being requested to write about Takasugi x Scissors, a story involving "a pair of scissors, running around, snow, ice and Takasugi's left eye". A ghost story involving… well, you know.

**Disclaimer**: This is totally not cannon. Geez, I'm not even sure if Takasugi's hiding his eye because he's lost it or simply because he's got a Sharingan or something under that horrible eye patch DDDX

**Author's Note Beforehand**: This is a ghost story and includes some other cultures. Any tradition mentioned will be explained at the bottom of the story, so make sure you read that when you get to them. I hope you enjoy this 8)

Another important thing is that this contains quite a lot of blood and gore… if you were to imagine it, it's not pretty, but since this is just literature, I think most of you will be fine. Just giving a warning before we start.

Snow fell gently outside, covering the land in a blanket of snow, muffling the howls of winter and silencing all other signs of life in the land. The sky was pitch black, like the ink seeping across the table before spreading and sinking into the rough wooden patterns. Gintoki sighed heavily as he held up his ink-drenched 'masterpiece' and groaned loudly.

"Oh man," he exclaimed as loud as he dared, holding the piece of parchment up to his face as though not believing his eyes. No wonder, either; he had spent the whole evening trying to write out a poem in perfect calligraphy and now, five hours past bedtime, all his hard work had come to nothing. "You've got to be kidding me," he said, setting the paper back onto the table and collapsing onto his back, cursing his clumsiness. He scrunched the black, dripping parchment up into a ball as best as he could (while dirtying his hands completely in the process) and, smirking wickedly, chucked it across the room where a snoring Takasugi lay with his blanket off and his stomach exposed to the freezing air.

Takasugi woke with a start when the ink bullet connected with the side of his face and glared at Gintoki through half open eyes. "What?" he rasped in a voice riddled with sleep. "Don't you have anything better to do than make your friends victims of your selfish nocturnal habits?"

"You kicked your blankets; I can see your stomach," Gintoki snorted at the ungrateful bastard. "Next time I'll just let you catch a cold."

"That is, if I haven't caught one already from being woken up at two o'clock in the morning. Just _what_ on earth are you doing?"

"Writing a poem."

"I would have never guessed," Takasugi said sarcastically, picking up the ink ball and chucking it back into Gintoki's face. Gintoki responded by kicking the table over as he pounced on Takasugi, inky fingers outstretched as he smudged Takasugi's face with wet blackness.

"It's a letter for our _dear Zura,_" he said through gritted teeth as he smeared every bit of his hands over Takasugi's face, pinning his arms against his sides with his legs. "Would you like to hear it?"

"Yes, please," Takasugi said as the best as he could, his cheeks were being squeezed and pinched against each other. "Is it a love confession? Or is it a declaration of guilt that you ate his pickled seaweed last week?"

Gintoki ignored Takasugi's jibes. "Here it is," he said, straddling Takasugi so that he was facing the boy directly. "Listen carefully:

_Zurako! Oh, Zurako!  
Wherefore art thou, Zurako!  
I ne'er saw beauty till this night  
'Tis torture, and not mercy, when I look away from thy face  
Bright are thy eyes and fair thy skin  
Kill the envious, sickly moon  
I sail upon the bosom of the lazy-pacing clouds,  
Us star-crossed lovers—_

—but of course, I've forgotten to put in more description about his hair. Ne, Takasugi?"

Takasugi's face imitated all seven shades of the rainbow before smacking Gintoki's hand away. "You're sick!" he said in a disgusted tone, face contorted with repulsion. "I call that plagiarism, not a love poem! And will you stop holding my hand like you're about to propose to be or something!"

Gintoki put on a mockery of a hurt face. "You're so cruel," he whined, getting off the irritated boy. "I wrote this especially for Julie—I mean, _Zurako_. If that isn't sincere enough then I don't know what is."

"I don't know, and I don't _want_ to know." Takasugi turned his back on Gintoki, clearly not wanting to take any part in Gintoki's madness. "Even _I_ don't see the point in you doing this, which is saying a lot. You're just going to make him madder than he already is. It's not good, I tell you! Don't say that I didn't warn you if you both end up crossdressing in the future." He snuggled deeper into his blankets and his lectures grew muffled. "I'm going back to sleep; don't make me up for nothing, or sensei is going to hear about this."

"Where's Zura anyway?" Gintoki demanded as the room began to grow quiet again. When Takasugi ignored him, he poked him in the back.

"Hey, Takasugi, where's Zurako?"

"Shaddap, I'm trying to sleep."

"Not before you tell me where he is. I haven't seen him all evening, I was too busy writing the poem and wishing he wasn't there to look over my shoulder."

"He wrecked Bath-Time Sempai's robe," Takasugi mumbled sleepily. "And since tomorrow is bath day, he'll be wanting his bath robe, so Zura's going to be in trouble unless he finds a way to replace the thing." Disgust seeped through his voice and Gintoki grinned; Takasugi and Bath-Time Sempai hated each other with passion ever since they set eyes on each other. But then he frowned.

"But it's midnight, Takasugi. Shouldn't he be back by now?"

"It takes more than a snap of the fingers to produce a robe, and a _big_ robe at that, Gintoki. Show shut up and let me sleep."

Gintoki bit his lip. "But Zura would have enough sense to come back first and go there first thing in the morning… right?"

"Beats me, we're talking about '_Zura ja nai, KATSURA da!_' after all" Takasugi mimicked Zura's catchphrase in a bored tone. "Shut up."

"Besides, I heard that—"

"Gintoki…"

"—the town tailor died only recently," Gintoki finished in a whisper.

"Look, all this talk is really just pointless, okay? If he was that desperate, poor Zura is going to go as far as running to the next town in exchange for escaping a Bath-Time Sempai-Ordeal. I know I would."

"Also, this is the 'First Seventh Night **(see Author's Note)**,'" added Gintoki in that eerie tone. "You do know what this means, don't you?"

"Gintoki, if you say one more thing about _yourei's _(ghosts), I'm going to tear out that natural perm of yours and stick it up—"

"Takasugi, I'm dead serious. The tailor doesn't have a family."

The horror of Gintoki's words sunk in as the silence became crushing in Takasugi's ears. He threw his blanket off and sat up, glaring at Gintoki.

"Gintoki, I swear, if Zura is perfectly all right, I am going to tell him about your poem. Let's go get the bike if Zura hasn't taken it."

"Sorry, Takasugi! Looks like you're the only one that can go!" Gintoki said snidely, pointing to his arm that had been broken only a few days ago. Takasugi scowled and dragged a laughing Gintoki outside into the snow, the wind and the ice.

**~X~**

Katsura hadn't taken the bike, and he was regretting it already as he wandered through the empty streets aimlessly. Where was that tailor shop Shouyou sensei had always taken them to when they outgrew their clothes? He gritted his teeth against the cold, slipping a little on the ice and wishing he had brought another layer of clothing. It was already very late, he knew, but he was in no mood to join Takasugi in the bath with Bath-Times Sempai scalding their bodies and sanding their skin with that horrendous brush of his when morning came. As he shuffled through the dark streets, he vaguely realized that he was lost and groaned inwardly.

"Takasugi's going to kill me," he muttered, trying to find any sign of living life. He had left Takasugi with the instructions _don't tell anyone, especially Bath-Time Sempai, or else I'll be skinned alive by sensei_. He wasn't exactly sure if Takasugi would tell Gintoki, but the natural perm had spent the evening writing something and giggling to himself in the corner, hiding it from Katsura's view when he'd asked what was so funny. His spare sixth sense told him that it probably had something to do with his nickname, but he brushed the thought away.

Rounding the corner, Katsura finally found a dim light at the end of the street and saw that it was a roadside soba stand. He made his way quickly towards the yellow light, wondering indistinctively why someone would be up at this time of night.

"Ahh, welcome!" the vendor said, turning to smile at him. Katsura jumped when he saw who he was.

"S-Sensei?" he gasped. It was Shouyou-sensei all right, smiling down at the frightened student. Katsura was perplexed; the only person that knew he was here tonight was Takasugi (and perhaps Gintoki) and he couldn't see any reason for Takasugi to betray him. He leaned in closer to Shouyou-sensei, more confused than ever.

"Sensei? Why are you here, selling soba?"

"Eh?" the man looked puzzled. "Do I look like somebody you know?"

Katsura squinted and realized his mistake. "Sorry," he muttered, looking away. "I've mistaken you for someone else." He was about to ask him where the tailor lived, regardless of whether or not they'd be closed or not before the vendor broke into his thoughts.

"Does my face look better now?"

Katsura looked up, a baffled expression only to turn into horror as the soba vendor reached up with one hand and _wiped off his face—his eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows_. They all came off, leaving a blank stretch of skin in place.

He was a _Nopperabou-bo_*** (See Author's Note.)**.

As Katsura watched, the vendor turned its head towards him and cocked it a little, as though trying to see how he'd react. And of course, there was only one way he was going to respond to something like that.

He turned and ran away from the soba stand, feet sinking deep into the snow with each step, not daring to look back to see whether or not the Nopperabou-bo was pursuing him. His hair became undone as he fled through the streets for dear life—not that he cared, he just wanted to put as much distance between the _thing_ and himself. As he ran blindly around the town, stumbling and tripping as he went along, he swore to himself that he would never, _ever_ misbehave himself again, let alone coming out by himself at night.

Finally, he slowed down, not being able to run any further, clutching at his side, breathing heavily and face burning with heat. He had no idea his whereabouts, but the Nopperabou-bo was no longer in sight, which allowed him to breathe out in relief. Even better, as he raised his head to look around, he saw the tailor shop only a few buildings away. Clutching Bath-Time Sempai's robe closer to him, he staggered towards the shop, glad that there was still light emitting from the closed door.

However, when he entered the shop, there was his second shock that night. The person sitting behind the counter was none other than Takasugi, dressed in a dull blue robe over his kimono, playing around with a pair of scissors.

"Takasugi?" Katsura breathed. Takasugi snapped the scissors in the silent room soundly with a bored expression on his face and looked up at Katsura, an annoyed and irritated expression crossing his face.

"Ah, _there_ you are. I've been looking for you all over the place. Gintoki was worried about you, you know. He dragged me _all. The. Way. Out. Of. Bed. And. 5. Kilometres. Out. Into. This. Frickin. Cold._ How do you plead?"

Katsura let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks for coming. There's something really weird going on…"

He was about to tell Takasugi about the Nopperabou-bo, but something bugged at the back of his mind. Katsura looked at Takasugi carefully.

"Takasugi?"

"Hmm?" Takasugi held the pair of scissors close to his face, examining the blade.

"What are you actually doing here? You look far too relaxed to be out here looking for me, and you're sitting in a shop. Furthermore, where is the tailor?"

"Ehh?" Takasugi looked over at him, pouting angrily and eyes narrowing with distaste. "What are you on about, Katsura?"

"Takasugi…" Katsura took a step back, realizing that something was wrong. _Very_ wrong. While the boy in front of him looked and spoke like Takasugi, there was no way he would be using a pair of scissors so smoothly; nor would he ever call him by his real name.

"What are _you_ on about?" demanded another voice from the doorway. Katsura turned his head and his mouth fell open, for another Takasugi stood there, dressed in a brown haori as he remembered him. The katana he held in his hand was pointed directly at his clone.

"You sure have _some_ _face_, using my identity like that."

Katsura realized only too late what the boy holding the scissors in front of him actually was. His eyes widened as his fears were proved; the boy smiled, and, using his other free hand, wiped away his face like the previous Nopperabou-bo, leaving only a gaping hole for a mouth with a thin stretch of skin stretched over the entrance. Katsura opened his mouth and let out a high pitched scream.

"RUN TAKASUGI! IT'S A NOPPERABOU-BO!"

He ran towards Takasugi, but a cold, chilling hand grabbed hold of his shoulder and threw him back into the shop. Katsura landed heavily on his shoulder and as his leg struck the wall and he heard a loud cracking sound and pain shot down his leg and throughout his body, but there was nothing he could do as the faceless Takasugi leaned over him, leering widely.

"But I won't be a Nopperabou-bo for long, Katsura. I want a face… will you give me yours?"

"NEVER!"

The Nopperabou-bo grinned wider and its smooth, white hands stretched towards Katsura's face. "No," it hissed, making Katsura screw up his face at the overwhelming stench emitting from the dead person. "I _must_ have a face! I'll start with you!"

But then he threw his head back and screamed as the tip of a blade suddenly protruded from the front of his chest, impaling him all the way through. Katsura saw through his pain Takasugi directly behind the Nopperabou-bo, eyes burning with a sinister light. The faceless Takasugi howled a glass shattering shriek and gnashed its teeth at Takasugi, whipping its head around to attack the boy.

"Zura! Get out of here while you still can!" Takasugi roared as he slid the monster off his katana and drove it in again, this time through the neck. "Gintoki's not far off!"

"No!" Katsura wheezed, staggering to his feet and trying to find something to attack with. His eyes fell on the pair of scissors the fake Takasugi had been playing with and he whipped that around to whack the monster against its thick skull. The monster roared again and turned towards Katsura, bleeding from where its eyes should have been.

"EYES!" Kastura heard him moan in that chilling voice. Even his bones were responding in fear at the sound; he would feel them rattling uncontrollably and the glass in the windows shattered with a huge crash. "EYES! I—WANT—YOUR—EYES!"

But then a second blow from Takasugi sent its arm whizzing off into another corner of the shop. "Just go, Zura!" Takasugi shouted, desperately this time. "You'll only hinder me if you stay here without a weapon!"

_**["**__**You'll only hinder me if you stay here without a weapon!**__**"]**_

_Many years later, Katsura would wonder what might have happened if he'd obeyed this stupid, last request from Takasugi. Maybe they would have stayed as friends; maybe Takasugi would never turn into the bastard he would grow up to be; maybe their friendship wouldn't have fallen apart so soon, either. Or maybe Takasugi would have died had he run outside into the snow, calling for help, and Gintoki after that as he came to help his friend. But he didn't. Katsura didn't follow what Takasugi told him to do—and it wasn't his fault, either. After all, no student of Shouyou-sensei would abandon their friend as mercilessly like that._

Takasugi was bleeding freely from his forehead and was panting heavily as the crimson Nopperabou-bo advanced on him now, one bloody, dripping hand outstretched towards his face. _If only, if only_… if only Katsura wasn't standing there directly behind the faceless fiend, Takasugi knew he would have swung his katana down and taken off its head and ended it all. Stupid, stupid Zura, thought Takasugi grimly as his arm was frozen in midair. If he struck the Nopperabou-bo like that, he would, without a doubt, also end Katsura's life. He was too close to it.

And there was nothing else he could do as his faceless clone's palm smashed into the left side of his face and felt himself pummelling into darkness. His last thought before the blinding pain in his left eye was how ironic it was, being attacked like this when he was meant to be saving his friend.

_How strong am I?_

There was a flash of pain. Blinding pain. And then, there was darkness.

**~X~**

When Gintoki eventually got to the tailor's shop, there was already a crowd forming, all looking extremely afraid. But he didn't need to ask them what was wrong; it was already obvious, by the broken glass, the shrieks and howls coming from inside the building and the snow outside stained with red like the Sakura flower in spring painted into the cold. Even as he ran towards the building, somebody pulled on his arm.

"Don't go in there!" rasped an old lady, fear written in all over her face. "There's a _Nopperabou-bo _in there! It's already taken someone else's face!"

Gintoki felt an iron fist clench around his heart and slapped the woman's hand off, charging into the building without a word. But even though he had been warned beforehand that a faceless ghost was inside, nothing could prepare him for what he was about to see inside, halting him in his tracks and staring in horror.

The Nopperabou-bo had fixed its hand onto the left side of Takasugi's face. Takasugi's mouth was wide open in a silent scream of pain, but even as Gintoki watched, the life slowly seeped out of him and he slumped to the ground. However, the Nopperabou-bo kept its hand connected to Takasugi's face and the faint outline of an eye was beginning to form on its face. It was Katsura's scream that brought him back to his senses.

"GINTOKI!" Katsura yelled from the corner, his leg bent at an awkward angle and clutching at his equally bent arm. "SAVE TAKASUGI! _IT'S GOING TO STEAL HIS FACE_!"

There was no time for any regrets. Gintoki leapt forwards, pulling out his katana and ignoring the painful cracking in his arm as he strained his broken bones, he drove his katana through the Nooperabou-bo from its face all the way in until the tip came out of its stomach. There was a final piercing shriek from the Nopperabou-bo before it finally burst into a thousand tiny shards of glass, which each began to burn with an eerie blue light. But when the flames touched the wooden walls, they, too, began to burn. Gintoki whipped around to see Katsura dragging his leg across the shop.

"Let's get Takasugi out of here, Zura! The building is going to collapse soon!"

No sooner than said, a burn piece of ceiling crashed down, nearly missing Katsura. He bit his lip as though fighting the pain and helped Gintoki to drag Takasugi's unconscious body out of the burning building. At one point Gintoki's foot slipped and they almost crashed headfirst into the flames surrounding them, but Katsura pulled Gintoki back at the last moment and it wasn't long before they were out in the cold winter night again, watching the burning building cave in and crumble. Gintoki looked at Katsura's arm.

"Zura… are you all right?"

"It's not Zura, it's Katsura."

Gintoki smiled; hearing that answer was all he needed from Katsura to know that he was fine. But the smile faded as he leaned in to look at Takasugi's face.

"Takasugi…"

Katsura's face was creased with worry. "What did it do to him?" he wailed, brushing Takasugi's dark, bloodily damp hair out of his eyes and gasping in dismay as there was only a dark, empty hole in place of where mischievous and wit had once shone through. Gintoki shrank his hand back from the gruesome sight.

"Well, looks like Bath-Time Sempai will be missing out on his weekly fun tomorrow."

**~X~**

**[Omake]**

_One week later._

The ceiling was a really rather boring thing, Takasugi decided. It was strangely simple—but then, he had been staring at the same scenery for an entire week due to the fact that he couldn't move his neck and the rest of his body racked with pain when he tried to move _that_. Worst still was his vision; everything seemed rather flat and depressing when you tried to look at it with only one eye. He let out a sigh and wondered when he would be able to go and beat the living daylights out of Gintoki for dragging him into the mess in the first place, but a gut wrenching feeling told him that it was his own fault.

_I was the weak one_, he thought bleakly, fists tightening under the blankets causing him to wince with pain. _I was the one who couldn't even protect one friend… if anyone is to blame, it's me. Why?_

He was still voicing this one question when Katsura and Gintoki came to see him a few hours later. Katsura nearly strangled him as he hugged Takasugi's neck to his chest. It was the first time Takasugi had seen them after the incident, and both of them looked like it had never happened in the first place already apart from their injuries.

"Takasugi!" Katsura said brightly, letting go of his neck to allow him breathing space. "Shouyou-sensei said that you can come out soon, so isn't that great? He also says that we can all go and shake the Sakura flowers out of the trees once spring comes… oh, and Bath-Time Sempai let me off for ruining the robe—he reckons we got our punishment already, isn't that great? And… and…"

As Katsura prattled on and on, Takasugi turned his head only slightly to see Gintoki looking away guiltily and narrowed his eyes. Were they keeping something from him? But he barely had time to ponder about that when something warm and wet touched his face. As his eyes flickered back to Katsura, he was startled to see tears trickling down his cheeks.

"Y-your eye… i-it's my fault that y-you…"

"Zura," Takasugi rasped in a cracked voice, speaking for the first time since coming home. "If you try to apologize again, I swear, I am going to rip your left eye out and take it for myself once I can move."

Katsura blinked at Takasugi. There were tears too, sliding down his face.

**~X~**

And then that was when Gintoki decided to read out his new poem: "_To Takako, from Zurako_."

_Takako! Oh, Takako!  
Wherefore art thou, Takako!  
I ne'er saw beauty till this night  
'Tis torture, and not mercy, when I look away from thy face  
Bright are thy eyes and fair thy skin  
Kill the envious, sickly moon  
I sail upon the bosom of the lazy-pacing clouds,  
Us star-crossed lovers—"_

Needless to say, Gintoki was the first person Takasugi set his mind to kill later on.

**Author's Notes:**

_First Seventh Night_: a Chinese custom where it is believed that on the 7th day after the person died, the spirit of the dead will come home and their family must prepare a ladder so that they can climb to heaven. I don't know if the Japanese do this or not (most likely _not_) but just bear with me… okay? 8D

_Nopperabou-bo_: a Japanese faceless ghost (well… you should know now anyway). **DO NOT GOOGLE IT. I REPEAT—DON'T DO IT**. I had nightmares after seeing the images come up. They most likely turn up first as a lovely young woman, a strong samurai, someone good or close to the victim, etc, before wiping their face featureless. Normally they're harmless, just there to scare the crap out of humans, but lemme twist that a little in this story…

Other stuff:

Okay, I know it's sucky and long and stuff… but come on, I was trying to write a cute, fluffy fic about scissors but it never worked out well. Because Takasugi's eyes just can't be explained by fluff, I guess.

I really worked super hard on this, so I'd appreciate it greatly if you'd leave me a review telling me how I did so I can have something to look forwards to next time 8D


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